Twitter's Lean Staffing Watched

"Elon Musk is trying to run Twitter Inc. with an ever-shrinking fraction of the staff the company had when he took over. Silicon Valley is watching to see if he will succeed.

Across the tech industry and many businesses broadly, companies are trying to do more with less -- using layoffs to unwind recent hiring sprees and cutting back on some long-shot projects.

Mr. Musk's cuts are of a different magnitude. He said in December that Twitter's staff was down to roughly 2,000 from close to 8,000 before he acquired the company in October and that he was "cutting costs like crazy." He conducted more layoffs over the weekend, employees said. Twitter declined to disclose the number of cuts.

Mr. Musk's moves raise the question: How much can companies cut without going too far?

"This might give inspiration to many other companies to look inside the organization, and say, 'How much more efficient can we get?'" said Thuan Pham, formerly the chief technology officer for Uber Technologies Inc. and who now advises companies.

The question was back in the spotlight Wednesday when many Twitter users were unable to access the social-media platform for about two hours. The company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about the issue. It came after an incident three weeks ago when users were unable to tweet and after glitches during the Super Bowl halftime show.

It is hard to judge from outside the company, Mr. Pham said, how Mr. Musk's strategy is working. He pointed to the recent incident, when Twitter suffered glitches that temporarily left users unable to perform basic functions like tweeting or sending direct messages.

Mr. Musk then emailed staff to "please pause for now on new feature development in favor of maximizing system stability and robustness, especially with the Super Bowl coming up," according to a copy of the email seen by The Wall Street Journal. The subject line was "Focus."

"When you get to that point, when you have to choose one or the other, that means you're very lean, if not too lean," Mr. Pham said.

Twitter said it wasn't unusual to implement a pause ahead of major events, and Mr. Musk has said Twitter is working on new features.

Twitter had at least four international outages in February, according to the internet-monitoring group NetBlocks. That is compared with nine during all of 2022, NetBlocks said.

The social-media company has a history of technical fumbles that predate Mr. Musk's takeover. Almost three years ago, it was hit by an attack that allowed hackers to take over an array of accounts including those of celebrities, politicians and billionaires -- among them, Mr. Musk.A year earlier, the account of Twitter co-founder and then Chief Executive Jack Dorsey was hacked to send erratic and racist tweets.

Current and former Twitter engineers say the platform's continued functioning now is at least in part a testament to years of previous engineering work. After Twitter in its early years struggled with outages during big events, such as the 2010 World Cup, the company's engineers placed a big focus on resiliency, former employees said.

There's a difference between running Twitter with 2,000 people now, versus running it with 2,000 people in 2013 or earlier, said Jason Goldman, an early Twitter executive who was on its board between 2007 and 2010. The reason, he said, is that "Twitter is not in its hypergrowth phase right now." He added later, "It's a lot different if you're just trying to keep the thing going."

Tech companies with recent layoffs include Google's Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Salesforce Inc. Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg dubbed 2023 "the year of efficiency," and other executives have spoken similarly about curbing costs. Meta recently laid off about 11,000 workers, or about 13% of staff.

Some bigger tech giants have cut more jobs in terms of total numbers, but Twitter's cuts, as a percentage of staff, are staggering in comparison. Twitter's workforce is the smallest it's been in a decade and below the 2,712 employees it had in 2013, the year it went public.

Some tech investors have warned against doomsday predictions about Twitter. In November, venture-capitalist Bill Gurley predicted that "everyone rooting for Twitter to 'functionally fail'" will be disappointed. Mr. Gurley said that companies usually do multiple rounds of layoffs because they fear cutting too much. "But they VASTLY underestimate how resilient companies actually are," he tweeted.

At Twitter, some employees have applauded changes since Mr. Musk took over. "Super exciting technical update," tweeted Twitter product executive Keith Coleman on Monday about changes to the fact-checking program Community Notes, which Mr. Musk has publicly supported.

Other employees said they are scrambling to fill in for laid-off colleagues and tasked with working on aspects of the platform they never did before, because their colleagues who knew those tools well are no longer at the company. As a result, they said, it has become more difficult to address technical issues when they arise. Twitter didn't respond to a request for comment on those complaints.

Twitter, which had a record of losing money, posted a $221.4 million net loss in 2021, the last full year it publicly reported financial results before going private. Mr. Musk has said he thinks Twitter will break even this year.

"The question is: with 70% of the workforce gone, does that mean that there was 70% deadweight?" said Brian McCullough, general partner at the Ride Home Fund.” [1]

Yes, it does. Most of the jobs in any organization are so called bullshit jobs, designed to show how smart and important the boss is, how many subordinates the boss is able to control.

1.  Twitter's Lean Staffing Watched
Corse, Alexa.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 02 Mar 2023: B.1.

Vokietija ir Italija stabdo ES elektromobilius

„Grupė didelių Europos Sąjungos šalių grasina blokuoti Briuselio planą veiksmingai uždrausti vidaus degimo variklį, sukeldama pavojų ambicingai bloko darbotvarkei kovoti su klimato kaita.

 

     Vokietija ir Italija šią savaitę pareiškė, kad šios ir kitos savaitės svarbiuose susitikimuose gali užblokuoti plano formalų patvirtinimą. Berlynas pareiškė, kad nepritars šiam planui, nebent Briuselis sutiks leisti kartu su visiškai elektra varomomis transporto priemonėmis naudoti vadinamuosius sintetinius degalus, kurie gali degti, kaip benzinas ir dyzelinas, bet išmesti mažiau klimatui kenksmingų teršalų.

 

     Vadovaujant Europos Komisijai, ES vykdomajai institucijai, Europa priėmė ambicingą kovos su klimato kaitą sukeliančiomis šiltnamio efektą sukeliančių dujų emisijomis planą. Planas grindžiamas masiniu elektromobilių pritaikymu ir veiksmingai uždraudžia naujas transporto priemones su vidaus degimo varikliais nuo 2035 m.

 

     Dalis automobilių pramonės, kurioje ES dirba 3,4 mln. žmonių (beveik 12 % visų darbo vietų gamyboje), atsitraukė, teigdamos, kad į planą įtraukus vadinamuosius e-degalus, būtų galima pasiekti išmetamųjų teršalų tikslus ir pailginti  dešimtmečiais brangų atsiribojimą nuo vidaus degimo variklių.

 

     Kai kurios vyriausybės išreiškė pritarimą šiam pageidavimui, nes perėjimas prie elektra varomų transporto priemonių, kurių gamyba yra ne tokia sudėtinga, nei jų konkurentų su degimo sistema, kelia grėsmę daugybei darbo vietų regione.

 

     Pagal praėjusį spalį pasiektą kompromisą, įstatymų leidėjai sutiko, kad Europos Komisija galėtų pateikti papildomų taisyklių, leidžiančių ir toliau prekiauti naujomis transporto priemonėmis su varikliais, naudojančiais neutralų anglies dioksido kiekį, tačiau ji to dar nepadarė.

 

     Vokietijos transporto ministras Volkeris Wissingas antradienį pareiškė, kad Berlynas nori, kad Briuselis pateiktų šį teisės aktą prieš plano patvirtinimą, sakydamas, kad „Vokietijos vyriausybė negali patvirtinti kompromiso“, nes Briuselis dar turi tai padaryti.

 

     Italijos aplinkos ministerija pareiškė, kad aplinkosaugos tikslų reikia siekti taip, kad nebūtų pakenkta darbo vietoms ir gamybai, o elektrinės transporto priemonės neturėtų būti laikomos vieninteliu keliu į nulinį išmetamųjų teršalų kiekį.

 

     Kitos dvi šalys atmetė teisės aktų priėmimą. Lenkija informavo kitas valstybes nares, kad planuoja balsuoti prieš planą, o Bulgarija nurodė, kad susilaikys, pranešė keturi ES diplomatai. Lenkijos vyriausybė anksčiau teigė, kad toks draudimas apribotų vartotojų pasirinkimą ir padidintų išlaidas. Veikdamos kartu, tos šalys turi pakankamai balsų planui blokuoti.

 

     Komisijos atstovas spaudai teigė, kad komisijos politinė vadovybė turi nuspręsti, kokius teisės aktus siūlyti ir kada tai padaryti. „Perėjimas prie nulinės emisijos transporto priemonių yra absoliučiai būtinas“, kad būtų pasiekti bloko klimato tikslai, sakė jis.

 

     Europos automobilių sektorius ir šalys, kurios pradėjo daug investuoti į e. degalų plėtrą, ėmėsi veiksmų prieš komisijos plano nuostatą, pagal kurią iki 2035 m. transporto priemonės turi būti be teršalų – de facto uždrausta naudoti vidaus degimo variklius.

 

     Vokietija, kurioje gyvena didžiausi regiono automobilių gamintojai, šią savaitę pareiškė, kad netrukus patvirtins sintetinių degalų naudojimą, o tai privers Briuselį pasekti pavyzdžiu arba mesti iššūkį Vokietijos įstatymui." [1]

Viskas priklauso nuo to, ar tie sintetiniai degalai bus daug brangesni, negu elektra. Jei taip, tai mes tokių automobilių ir patys nepirksim. 

1. Business News: Germany, Italy Aim to Block EU Combustion-Engine Ban
Kim Mackrael; Boston, William.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 02 Mar 2023: B.6.

Germany and Italy are putting the brakes on EU electric cars

"A group of large European Union countries is threatening to block a plan by Brussels to effectively ban the internal combustion engine, endangering the bloc's ambitious agenda to combat climate change.

Germany and Italy said this week they could block the plan's formal approval at crucial meetings this week and next. Berlin said it would oppose the plan unless Brussels agrees to allow so-called synthetic fuels that can burn like gasoline and diesel but spew fewer climate-damaging emissions alongside fully electric vehicles.

Under the leadership of the European Commission, the EU's executive body, Europe adopted an ambitious plan to fight climate-change-causing greenhouse-gas emissions. The plan relies on the mass adoption of electric vehicles and effectively bans new combustion-engine vehicles from 2035.

Parts of the auto industry, which employs 3.4 million people in the EU -- nearly 12% of all manufacturing jobs -- pushed back, arguing that including so-called e-fuels into the plan would allow emission targets to be hit while stretching the costly move away from combustion engines over decades.

Some governments expressed sympathy with the demand as the move to electric vehicles, which are less complex to produce than their combustion rivals, threatens large numbers of jobs in the region.

Under a compromise reached last October, lawmakers agreed that the European Commission could put forward additional rules allowing new vehicles with engines that use carbon-neutral fuels to continue to be sold, but it has yet to do so.

German Transport Minister Volker Wissing on Tuesday said Berlin wanted Brussels to present this legislation ahead of the plan's approval, saying that because it had yet to do so, "the German government cannot approve the compromise."

Italy's Environment Ministry said environmental targets should be pursued in a way that avoids harming jobs and production and electric vehicles shouldn't be seen as the only route to zero emissions.

Two other countries pushed back on the legislation. Poland informed other member states it plans to vote against the plan, and Bulgaria indicated it plans to abstain, four EU diplomats said. Poland's government previously said such a ban would restrict consumer choice and lead to higher costs. By acting together, those countries have enough votes to block the plan.

A spokesman for the commission said it is up to the commission's political leadership to determine what legislation to propose and when to do so. "The transition to zero-emissions vehicles is absolutely necessary" to meet the bloc's climate targets, he said.

The European car sector and countries that have begun investing heavily in e-fuel development spearheaded the effort against the provision in the commission's plan stating that vehicles should be emissions-free by 2035 -- a de facto combustion-engine ban.

Germany, home to the region's largest car makers, said this week that it would soon approve the use of synthetic fuels, a move that would force Brussels to either follow suit or challenge the German law." [1]

 

 It all depends on whether that synthetic fuel will be much more expensive than electricity. If so, we will not buy such cars ourselves.

 

1. Business News: Germany, Italy Aim to Block EU Combustion-Engine Ban
Kim Mackrael; Boston, William.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 02 Mar 2023: B.6.

 

So why do we need such a Prime Minister?

 "Prime Minister: Europe needs to think and create a world without Russia."

Russia lets us know that a world without Russia is of no interest to Russia and must be destroyed in a nuclear war. This means that the Prime Minister of Lithuania is creating a nuclear wasteland world without Lithuania. 

The authorities do not care about crime in Lithuania, like other big Lithuanian problems. The entire Lithuanian government in Ukraine carries around Zelensky's and his wife's potty, basks in the rays of honor of these influencers and talks only about that.

Tai kam mums tokia premjerė?

"Premjerė: Europai reikia galvoti ir kurti pasaulį be Rusijos."

 Rusija leidžia mums suprasti, kad pasaulis be Rusijos yra Rusijai neįdomus ir turi būti sunaikintas branduoliniame kare. Tai reiškia, kad Lietuvos premjerė kuria branduolinės dykvietės pasaulį be Lietuvos.

Nusikalstamumas Lietuvoje, kaip ir kitos didelės Lietuvos problemos valdžiai nerūpi. Lietuvos valdžia visa Ukrainoje, nešioja Zelenskio ir jo žmonos šikpuodžius, šildosi šių influenserių garbės spinduliuose ir kalba tik apie tai. 

Premjerė: Europai reikia galvoti ir kurti saugumo sistemą be Rusijos

Skaityti daugiau: https://kauno.diena.lt/naujienos/lietuva/politika/premjere-europai-reikia-galvoti-ir-kurti-saugumo-sistema-be-rusijos-1116004